stonesoup's Profile

I shop Cumbrae's regularly and love the meat, service and friendly energy. But the beef stock they prepare and sell, I find, is horrible. Too much salt(!) and a medicinal, metallic flavour. Same with the demi. Its easy to make mistakes with these products because of the lack of labels... I'm not asking for details... just a ingredients list. I ruined a braise once and will never repeat the mistake.

As for other prepared foods I find a lot are quite good. These days, I'm really enjoying the slow cooked beans with bacon.

Oh dear, all of this is familiar, I had a similar response when I had to change the way I eat.

For me the result was depression and that made it very hard to get excited about eating. So many things were excluded and what remained was not interesting. As a chowhound I spend most of my time thinking about and anticipating what I'm going to eat next, such is the pleasure of life for those who live to eat.

Perhaps your situation is different but I can tell you, after some time, I've learned to anticipate aspects of my changed diet with great pleasure. Indeed, the challenge of learning to prepare new foods in new styles has been liberating ... there's always so much to learn.

Gosh, yes, I agree with you completely. I stopped watching the Food Network as soon as I realized they don't make programs for me (I think I kept hoping they would). Although, A Brown's Good Eats is an exception.

Of course the network's advertising targets their market, which is focused on processed and prepared food!!!

Note to the executives: I'd also reruns of good food shows(Jeff Smith, please) from back in the day. More imagination, please!

With brown rice, I like cooking it in the oven. Cook's Illustrated recently did a smart rice and grain cooking guide. They suggest 1 cup of b rice to 1.5 cups of boiling water, with some salt, if you like.

Put everything into a shallow bake dish and cover, very tightly, with two layers of foil. One hour in the oven at 250-275 degrees. Let it sit for a while when it comes out the of the oven.

There are a lot of different ways of producing good results roasting turkey legs. Here's one ...

Put them on a rack in a hot oven (400-425) and cook them for five-ten minutes, turn the oven down (375) and continue roasting until they're done. I'll make a conservative recommendation that the internal temperature, at the thickest part of the flesh, should be 180 degrees.

Hard to go wrong with the thighs and drumsticks because they're so full of juice and fat .... consequently you can cook them a little longer and still have a juicy, tasty product.